The Beginner's Guide to Choosing Wayfinding Signs

Friday February 08, 2019

From residential communities and historic city districts to commercial shopping centers, parks, hospital, schools and more, wayfinding signs are used in a variety of areas. The primary purpose of wayfinding signs is to assist visitors in navigating the area where they are used. A local park, for example, may feature wayfinding signs directing visitors to the picnic tables, restrooms and walking trials, while a commercial shopping center may feature wayfinding signs for the various businesses and their respective address number. But if you're planning to buy wayfinding signs for your community or development project, you'll need to choose the right ones to ensure that visitors can easily navigate it.

Similar Design as Street Signs

It's recommended that you choose wayfinding signs with the same or similar design as the area's street signs. If the area's street signs feature a modern black-and-white color scheme, using black-and-white wayfinding signs will create a more cohesive, consistent landscape. On the other hand, if the area's street signs feature a green-and-gold color scheme, you should use a similar green-and-gold design for the wayfinding signs.

Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) published by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) now requires the use of both uppercase and lowercase letters on all street signs. While this doesn't necessarily cover wayfinding signs -- unless the signs are used on roads -- it's still a good idea to choose wayfinding signs with a similar format. Studies have shown that signs featuring a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters are easier to read than those featuring all uppercase letters. You may want to use all uppercase letters for titles, but using uppercase and lowercase letters for smaller details about the area will help visitors navigate the area more easily.

Arrows for Navigation

Arrows are an invaluable design element for wayfinding signs. Their simple design shows visitors the exact direction in which a specific point of interest is located. With that said, not all wayfinding signs need arrows. In a shopping center with dozens of businesses, including an arrow on a wayfinding sign for each business isn't practical. For most other areas, however, arrows improve the overall value of wayfinding signs.

The Right Size

Wayfinding signs are available in a wide range of sizes, but you'll need to choose a suitable size for the area in which you intend to use it. There's no single "best" size to use for wayfinding signs. Rather, you choose wayfinding signs in an appropriate size relative to other nearby signs. In other words, don't choose wayfinding signs that are disproportionately smaller or larger than the surrounding street signs.